All Rise...

Judge David Johnson presents this unique three-part review, looking at the three guys who affected him the most as a burgeoning and long-suffering fan of the New York Knicks: Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Michael Jordan.

Opening Statement

1992. I am but a short, squat, awkward high school freshman. Not much going
on. Studying like crazy for my chemistry Regents exam (a standardized test in
New York). Playing the heck out of my Sega Genesis. Working to bounce back from
a scoreless season on my church basketball team. And then, suddenly, I'm sucked
into something that will profoundly affect my life for the next ten years or so:
I become a rabid fan of the New York Knicks.

I came to be a fan by chance. Some of my church basketball teammates were
hooting and hollering about how the Knicks had a legitimate shot at stunning the
world and dethroning the champion Chicago Bulls, led by that crusher of dreams,
Michael Jordan. The Knicks, under brand-new coach Pat Riley, the slicked-hair
import from the West Coast who rejuvenated the once-hapless Knicks (1991 record:
39-43) and molded the team into a bruising Eastern Conference powerhouse, were
at the threshold of something magical.

After pushing His Airness and company to a Game 7 winner-take-all, the
Knicks eventually succumbed on the Bulls' home floor. It was a heartbreaker, but
suddenly the once-storied franchise had a serious future ahead of it, led by the
dominant play of its big man, Patrick Ewing. I decided to buckle up and wholly
throw myself onto the bandwagon, bracing myself for whatever the future would
hold.

The Evidence, Part One—Patrick Ewing: Standing Tall

Warner Bros. has repackaged this 1993 profile of Patrick Ewing and released
it as part of its NBA Hardwood Classics series. Right out of the starting gate,
this DVD has a glaring element working against it: its age. Though there is
plenty to present about Ewing pre-1993, all the really interesting stuff
arguably happened later: the continuation of the Bulls-Knicks rivalry, Pat
Riley's departure, followed by the bitter feud that erupted with the Miami Heat,
then the two trips to the NBA finals.

But let's take a look at the program we've got. Patrick Ewing would become
one of the grandest sports figures in Big Apple history. From the moment
commissioner David Stern announced that New York had the first overall pick in
the 1985 NBA draft on, Ewing's career in NYC would be a twisting road of speed
bumps and glory. Patrick Ewing: Standing Tall tracks Ewing from his
childhood in Jamaica to his first exposure to the game of basketball to his
dominance as the "Hoya Destroya" and finally to his pitted path of NBA
superstardom. The program features interviews with sports writers, teammates,
coaches, friends, and Ewing himself to paint a picture of the big man. And it
doesn't shy away from some of the more dismal portions of his life.

For example, as a high schooler, Ewing was often berated by game crowds and
jeered with racist remarks (though one anecdote struck me as funny: a teammate
recalls that some geniuses from a rival school hoisted a poster that said:
"Ewing, You Can't Read"—think about that one for a moment).
Ewing would go on to enjoy stunning success playing for John Thompson and his
Georgetown Hoyas, even though a young Michael Jordan found it prudent to screw
him over in the NCAA final. His arrival in New York was met with cries of
"savior!," but when his rookie season proved to be a losing one for
the team, many of the fans turned on him. When Riley came on board, things
suddenly got interesting, and the documentary takes us to the 1992-1993 Eastern
Conference finals, where Ewing would once again face off with the hated Chicago
Bulls.

The 1992-1993 season brought Pat Riley Coach of the Year honors, 60 wins,
and the Knicks' league-wide reputation for being merciless defenders. The
addition of power lifter Anthony Mason, sleeper star John Starks, Derek Harper,
and Charles Smith to the core of Ewing and enforcer Charles Oakley elevated the
Knicks to the tops of the Atlantic Division: A showdown with Jordan and the
Bulls was inevitable, and everyone anxiously awaited it.

Me, especially.

By then, I was completely engrossed. Luckily, our basic cable package
featured the MSG Network, the official station for Madison Square Garden, and I
was able to watch any and all Knicks games I could stomach. In fact, the Knicks
virus had spread through my family, and my parents soon got into it—my
mother especially, who would get so worked up during nail-biter games that I
feared another missed free throw by Oakley would push her over the edge and
she'd open fire.

Despite the awesome success of the regular season, all paths led through the
United Center in Chicago. And the Easter Conference Finals brought Jordan and
Ewing face to face again, in front of a national audience. By that time, I was
engaged in a brutal war of words with my Bull fan high school friends. The trash
talk would reach such a combative tone that close relationships were very nearly
annihilated. The worst part would be talking some righteous trash all day,
suffering through a Knicks loss, and then slinking into homeroom with my tail
between my legs, gearing up to endure some potent verbal abuse.

Oh, those Bulls fans! Life was easy for them. They had frickin' Michael
Jordan, the greatest player to ever play the game. He beat us in 1992, 1993, and
1996, when His Airness came out of his 43rd retirement. He was the
insurmountable wall and the bane of the existence of all die-hard Knicks fans
around the globe and, most notably, in the little blue house in Utica, NY.

The Evidence, Part Two—Michael Jordan: His Airness

Another installment in the NBA Hardwood Classics series, this profile of
Michael Jordan was made in 1999 and, unlike the Ewing disc, benefits from this
choice; whereas Ewing's disc cut out the most memorable of his moments, this
feature made it out prior to Jordan's third return to the NBA, as a member of
the Washington Wizards, and the lame events that played out afterward. But let
us not dwell on those times and focus on what this documentary offers us.

Michael Jordan: His Airness offers an overview of Jordan's life and
career, starting with anecdotes of his childhood and interviews with his family
members (his older brother used to beat him all the time at basketball). Jordan
would go on to the University of North Carolina and make a name for himself as a
clutch player, single-handedly winning the NCAA championship against a
then-vaunted Georgetown Hoyas team, and giving his friend and future rival
Patrick Ewing a dose of anguish that he would grow used to in the future. And
then from his rookie year in the NBA on, it's all gravy. No other player in
recent pro ball history has enjoyed the success of Jordan, as he won time and
time again, setting scoring records and basically inventing things to do in
midair.

Thankfully, this disc offers a lot of footage of Jordan's amazing aerial
prowess, as well as his most memorable performances (e.g., 63 points against
Bird and the Celtics, his improbable shooting spree against the Trailblazers).
Really, the only downer the filmmakers could drum up was his loss to the Orlando
Magic during his first season back as the newly unretired number 45 (which, I
have to add with wanton glee, was great to see). But there's a happy ending, as
the feature ends with Jordan's second retirement after his insane performance
and game-winning shot against the Utah Jazz in the NBA finals, while tormented
by the flu. Jordan fans will enjoy this DVD (and enjoy the fact that the follies
His Airness committed as a president and player for the Washington Wizards had
not happened yet).

Two days before the 1993-1994 season, Michael Jordan retired from the NBA.
At last! The gates had suddenly opened up, offering hope and opening a visible
path for my beloved Knicks to finally attain their first championship in over
twenty years! Pat Riley had by now orchestrated a flawless defensive juggernaut
in the New York Knicks, who would hold opponents to low scoring numbers while
bludgeoning them nightly with physical play and trash talk galore.

It was easy going to school those days, proudly adorned in my Knicks
knockoff Starter jacket (all the rage back then; you could own a heavy coat
displaying the logo of your favorite team for a mere $56,000) and lapping up the
unease my Bulls-loving peers now had to deal with, sans number 23.

Playoff time rolled around finally, and I was on edge. While the Knicks were
the heavy favorites in the East, they still had to get through the still-potent
Bulls and a powerhouse Indiana Pacers team. Oh, those game nights were fraught
with tension. I had no appetite. I couldn't stay still. And during the barn
burners, I couldn't even watch. Each bedtime would find me pleading with the
Almighty to bestow His blessings on the Knicks and carry them to championship
glory.

A hard-fought series finally lifted the Knicks beyond the Bulls, and the
Pacers were next in line to be battled. Perennial NY villain Reggie Miller gave
it his best, but the Knicks triumphed, and a date with the Houston Rockets
awaited. The only thing standing between Patrick Ewing and his first NBA title
was Hakeem Olajuwon.

The Evidence, Part Three—Hakeem Olajuwon: Hakeem the Dream

Our final entry for the NBA Hardwood Classics series, Hakeem's DVD is a
remastered release of a program originally released in 1995. It really looks
like Patrick Ewing got the short end of the stick here with his release dates.
Both Jordan's and Olajuwon's features included all the best stuff from their
careers.

Like the other two programs, this presents Hakeem's story as a timeline,
starting us off with his childhood in Nigeria. Hakeem was an able athlete in
pretty much every sport except for basketball, but when he finally took
the game on he excelled. So much so that he journeyed to America to play for the
Houston Cougars, the NCAA team that would become renowned for its "Phi
Slamma Jamma" nickname. Led by Hakeem, the Houston team would go on to tear
up the college hoops world, running and dunking like their team waters were
laced with PCP. The onslaught stopped when Houston lost in the finals
to—you guessed it—Patrick Ewing and the Georgetown Hoyas.

Hakeem would go on to be the number one overall draft choice in the NBA (the
years Jordan was selected number three—ha ha, Sam Bowie!) and roll into a
now-stoked Houston. But Hakeem's pro career would be an uneven one; while he
would excel at the scoring end—Hakeem was one of the most agile big men in
the history of the game—his teams never seemed to get better, and The
Dream would consistently bear media scrutiny: Was he a selfish player?

The feature dwells on the pivotal moment in Hakeem's life, when he found
Islam and eventually relaxed. He believed that if God wanted him to win an NBA
title, then it would happen. The 1993-1994 season offered Hakeem his window. And
after a tumultuous post-season, specifically against Charles Barkley's Phoenix
Suns, Olajuwon came face to face with his old nemesis from college hoops days:
Patrick Ewing.

The Rockets and the Knicks slugged it out for seven games, where,
eventually, Hakeem would take the ring on his home court and Ewing would slink
off the court amid the confetti and fanfare.

Closing Statement

And so the window was closed on that leg of my Knicks faith journey. The team
would undergo some dramatic transformations, develop new, fiercer rivals (the
Miami Heat, now led by Pat "The Rat" Riley), and make it the NBA
Finals once more, only to be put down by a dominant San Antonio Spurs. But after
that crushing loss to Houston, and with Michael Jordan returning in full force
to secure three more consecutive titles, Ewing's shot at a title faded faster
than his patented turnaround baseline jumper.

Today finds me a casual fan of the Knicks, as they consistently struggle in
sub-mediocrity through the seasons, making me wistful for the days long gone.
The days when I would gather with my family, decked out in every piece of Knicks
regalia at my disposal, eating Little Caesar's pizza, crafting the eloquent
splashes of trash talk I would berate my friends with at the school the next
day, and thinking, game after game, that maybe—just
maybe—this was the Knicks' year.

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